Filling the North Sea Basin: Cenozoic sediment sources and river styles

The history of the infilling of the North Sea is outlined, with particular focus on sediment sources and river inputs. In simple terms (for the detail is complex), these sources changed from domination by northwesterly sources from the Shetland area (Paleocene to Eocene), to a geographically more uniform basin-centred pattern, and then northerly input following Fennoscandian uplift (Oligocene and Neogene). Baltic inputs followed via an 'Eridanos (Baltic) River' (Miocene), with cold-climate coarser sediment inputs, and lacustrine episodes resulting from ice damming (Pleistocene). River styles in each of these phases are discussed, with the Cenozoic at first being dominated by low energy fluvial deposition (channel sands, chemically weathered clays, and organic sedimentation) in fluctuating climates. Cold climates in the latest Neogene and Quaternary are seen as major determinant of a change in fluvial style, though these are also associated with tectonic effects, as in Scandinavia. The mediating role of vegetation, relating also to temperature and precipitation, is also likely to have been significant. Narrow valley incision followed the Middle Pleistocene Transition, as well as an increasing importance of Rhine-Meuse sources that had begun earlier.